St. Bede’s Lucas and Brolley are essay winners

St. Bede Academy 12th-graders Sam Lucas (left) and Sam Brolley were named national fourth- and sixth-place winners of the SIFMA Foundation student essay competition.

PERU — St. Bede Academy 12th-grade students Sam Lucas and Sam Brolley are the national fourth- and sixth-place winners, respectively, of the SIFMA Foundation’s InvestWrite student essay competition, sponsored by the SIFMA Foundation and SIFMA member firms.

As a culminating activity for the country’s 600,000 annual Stock Market Game participants, InvestWrite challenges fourth- through 12th-graders to analyze an investment scenario and write an essay offering investment advice. Students consider real-world economic events and trends, conduct research online, develop investment recommendations and, in the process, gain the skills to prepare for their own financial future.

The Fall 2012 winning InvestWrite essays composed by Lucas and Brolley were chosen through rigorous judging by thousands of teachers and industry professionals who evaluate students’ analysis of asset allocation, the investment potential of various publicly traded stocks, the students’ overall understanding of the stock market, and the manner in which they express their investment ideas in essay form.

In their essays, the pair addressed some of the potential impacts world events can have on the price of stocks and bonds. Lucas focused his response on ways the market might have responded had Mitt Romney been elected the 45th president of the United States. Brolley’s essay addressed how stocks of companies whose output is highly dependent upon wheat might respond should the disease Black Stem Rust invade U.S. wheat fields.

Lucas and Brolley participated in The Stock Market Game program through their honors econ course. Their teacher, Gerry Torri, has participated in The Stock Market Game program with her students since 2007. She has had three prior InvestWrite award winning students.